


The Midnight Thoughts (Ramblings) Of The Ranger

by cherrylng



Category: Muse (Band)
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, Cats, Friendship, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-07
Updated: 2018-09-07
Packaged: 2019-07-08 03:15:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15921648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherrylng/pseuds/cherrylng
Summary: Matt gets a rude wake up by Dom who has, once again, break into his flat. Only this time he came to his home at an unusual time just for a different sole purpose.





	The Midnight Thoughts (Ramblings) Of The Ranger

**Author's Note:**

> I just enjoy writing grumpy Mage Matt. He's like a cat who is annoyed at you and yet not many others notice it! Enjoy and comment!

“What if cats can like, stand on two legs and can talk to us?”  
  
Matt keeps his eyes firmly shut, determined to ignore the voice that interrupted his comfortable deep sleep and as much as he would love to put a pillow over his head, he tries not to move to prevent revealing to Dom that he is actually awake enough to hear him.  
  
“Like, it would be so cool to have cats that can do what we do. Go on adventures, living a life with humans...”  
  
Matt opens his eyes just to be sure of where is Dom situated in his room in order to give him a glare through the dark.  
  
“Come on, Matt. You’d think it’s cool too to have cats that would be your best partner in an expedition. Like man’s best friend the dog, only it can do what we do  _and_  they’re cats!”  
  
Matt is tempted to give an eye twitch to show his irritation, but he is so tired right now that he cannot even will any one of his eyes to do so. So all he can do is make a low growl in response and making sure that Dom gets the message that his reply meant that he isn’t too enthused to talk to him.  
  
The mage had thought at first that he is the sole recipient to suffer from Dom’s unconventional method of entering his home. Yet, surprisingly, he was wrong.   
  
Turns out, Matt is not the only one who gets this treatment. Even Chris gets it, much to the swordsman’s consternation, and a few others have testified to him based from experience alone.   
  
The pattern that Matt had noticed is that it seems to work in a way in which if Dom thinks of you as a friend that he likes to be around with, then it is just a matter of time to find him somehow in your home. Not to steal your belongings, of course, but for the reason of hanging out. Assuming, of course, you don’t regard him taking food from your larder and pantry as taking your belongings.  
  
“They would probably be everywhere, going where we humans go, much like how the domestic cats did too.”  
  
Yet apparently, unlike the others, Dom seems to take a particular liking to come visit Matt on a frequent basis. Matt had counted. He is the one that gets the regular visits of four times per month, unlike others that get the average of two ‘home visits’ a month.  
  
Matt gives a mental sigh, knowing that first thing when daylight dawns he will have to go and buy new locks again after only two weeks of use.   
  
He had set aside savings for the purpose to regularly buy replacement locks on his doors and windows. The locks have been switched and replaced every time the ranger manages to unlock them. He even has warranty by the shop that he buys his locks from since he has replaced them so much to the point that it actually got the locksmith to propose said warranty and reinvigorating himself to his business in order to dedicate himself into creating better locks to counter the ranger’s lockpicking skills. Last Matt heard, his reinvigorated attitude has made business brisk again.  
  
Matt also has his suspicions that by how many times and how frequently his locks are unlocked by the ranger and got replaced, Dom may know the locksmith that Matt goes to buy his locks and is unintentionally helping the locksmith to keep his business flourishing. As much as Matt wants to ditch having locks altogether, they are still necessary for practical reasons.  
  
The magical wards have been working well in keeping Matt being aware when Dom has entered his flat at best and has successfully prevented him from entering at least. But unfortunately, much like the locks, the wards are starting to fail one way or another. Worst case scenario by now tends to be that by the time Matt is alerted, Dom has already broken in and somehow manages to overcome whatever traps that are triggered within the wards would do to him.   
  
Disillusionment has managed to trick Dom’s mind into believing that he had something else to do and leaving the mage’s flat by his own volition several times already, but eventually he manages to gain enough resistance and mental strength against it in order to force himself to stay in the room to find and break the anchors to bring the wards -and thus the traps- down.  
  
Another that has since gone dormant is the teleporting trap. The days where Dom gets squeezed through a wormhole to get transported from his flat to end up inside the main halls of the guild is now long gone ever since Dom had learned to use something as a sacrifice for the wormhole to take so long as he manages to not physically touch anything first while on his objective to break the anchors.  
  
Matt had tried wards that can physically block anyone outside from entering, but creating that type of ward is such a huge drain to his magical energy that he stopped using it after a couple of times. Physical barrier wards sold by security companies often require a mage/wizard to live in the place where the ward is installed, and this reason alone is what made this ward an expensive one.   
  
Perhaps until he can learn how to increase his magical reserves and check how much the minimum limit is required to keep a physical barrier ward well fed, then he can use this type of ward more often. After all, it is the only one that Dom has yet to successfully break through.  
  
Luckily, there are still an arsenal of traps that he has yet to apply for use yet. Mostly everything right now is by process and elimination, testing out what works, what eventually doesn’t work, and what just doesn’t work at all.  
  
There had been options that would be much more effective to apply but Matt has good reasons not to use it. As much as Dom irritates him immensely, he doesn’t want him maimed or dead by the more dangerous and lethal wards. It would also affect Matt’s career and reputation in the guild if he does that.  
  
So far, the most economical one that Matt had always applied to his wards is an alarm system to alert Matt of the intrusions. Even if it doesn’t stop the ranger from successfully getting into his flat, it at least gives Matt the time needed to not be surprised by any sudden visits.  
  
This time is unusual, though. Usually, Dom tends to appear in daylight, which tends to mean that he is predictable even if his sudden appearance still gives Matt a good fright. This is the first time that Dom breaks into his flat in the middle of the night. Naturally, Matt is irritated that Dom had the gall to intrude his home and at the same time, exhausted because the ranger woke him up by pulling him into some bizarre topic for a casual conversation.  
  
“Can you imagine what would be like if sentient cats are real, though? Like we would so have one on our team to come along for adventure! Hunting down beasts and monsters! They would be the cutest critters that we actually would be willing to call them sentient!”  
  
Matt’s right eye twitches.  
  
Having had enough of Dom’s bizarre midnight ramblings, Matt pulls his hand out of the duvet and with a few gestures, he wordlessly summons the towel he had used after his bath to wrap the ranger’s arms to his body. Getting out of bed and using the towel as a grip, Matt lifts Dom off the ground and proceeds to throw him out of his flat by the window. Dom was still babbling on about sentient cats, rather than be concerned of what Matt is doing to him, up until he was thrown out of the window.  
  
Clearly, the ranger was not sober when he broke in at a very inappropriate time of the day.  
  
The dull ‘thud’ and the pained moan that came a few seconds later tells Matt that Dom landed on the ground, alive.  
  
In any other circumstances, Matt should feel bad that he had just done something so heinous, almost akin to murder. He actually, truly doesn’t feel bad or guilty or shameful over what he had just done. In fact, Matt is more impressed at himself for being able to physically throw Dom out through the window with his own two hands.  
  
Plus, he can still hear Dom talking, so that meant that he was not hurt too badly from being thrown out of a first storey window.  
  
With a flick of his hand, Matt summons his towel to unwrap itself from the ranger and fly back into the flat. It was already used anyways, so the filthy towel is going to the washer tomorrow.  
  
“Sorry about coming in to talk at this hour.” Matt can still hear Dom talking when he goes to lock his windows up. He blatantly doesn’t look down to where Dom is. “I get it. You needed the sleep. We’ll talk more about sentient talking cats tomorrow! See you in the guild!”  
  
Matt sighs, rubbing the temples of his head after shutting the window up tight. He reminds himself that he must take his victories in one small battle at a time. One small battle at a time.


End file.
